EAST LANSING – On the day Michigan State's athletic director stepped down, a year-long Free Press investigation found four cases of sexual assault involving seven MSU football players, casting a dark cloud over one of the school's most high-profile programs and its coach.

The cases, discovered through a Freedom of Information Act request, happened on coach Mark Dantonio's watch. Each of the cases were reported to authorities. And though no charges were filed, the allegations are another black eye for a university being dissected nationally for its handling of the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal.

Eleven football players have been accused of sexual assault since Dantonio became head coach in 2007. The number accounts for six cases of sexual assault, including two cases involving a total of four players in 2017.

Hollis is the second high-ranking official to leave MSU since Nassar, the former MSU and USA Gymnastics doctor, was sentenced Wednesday to 40 to 175 years in prison for sexually abusing more than 150 girls and young women, including some MSU athletes.

Later Wednesday, Michigan State president Lou Anna Simon announced she was leaving the post she had held for 13 years.

The ESPN report overlapped the Free Press inquiry that began in 2017 and uncovered four allegations of sexual assault by MSU football players.

CLOSE

Michigan State University Board of Trustees Chairman Brian Breslin speaks during a Trustees meeting following the Larry Nassar sexual abuse case.

The four incidents

Incident 1, reported Jan. 17, 2010

The first reported sexual assault allegedly occurred Nov. 20, 2009, but it was not reported until nearly two months later. The Ingham County Prosecutor’s Office said it did not receive information from MSU Police on that situation. The accused player did not return to the team in the 2010 season, and the alleged victim withdrew from MSU, according to the police report.

Incident 2, reported Oct. 29, 2013

Michigan State’s team plane returned home after a win over Illinois on Oct. 26, 2013. That night, one player allegedly sexually assaulted a woman. A week after that, just days after MSU Police interviewed the player, he played in MSU’s victory over Michigan at Spartan Stadium.

The alleged victim did not want to seek criminal prosecution but wanted it referred to MSU Judicial Affairs. It is unclear whether if that happened, and MSU cites the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which protects from the release of some student records, in not releasing details of matters in the student conduct system. The case was “closed to uniform division investigation” on Oct. 30 that year, and the player remained on the roster throughout that season. Police followed up with the woman June 20, 2014. A warrant request for the player was sent to the Ingham County Prosecutor’s Office on July 25. The prosecutor’s office declined to pursue charges on Sept. 6, 2014, because of a lack of evidence and third-party witnesses said it was a consensual act, according to police documents.

It is unclear whether if Dantonio or Hollis ever learned about the allegation or investigation. That football player competed in five more games and the Rose Bowl that season, eventually completing his eligibility after missing just one game in his career.

Michigan State coach Tom Izzo on the bench during the first half against Wisconsin on Friday, Jan. 26, 2018, at Breslin Center.(Photo: Kirthmon F. Dozier, Detroit Free Press)

Incident 3 reported May 28, 2014

One incident involving four players against one woman allegedly occurred in October 2007, Dantonio’s first season, but was not reported to MSU Police until 2014, according to MSU Police and prosecutor’s office records. No charges were filed after more than a yearlong investigation against the four implicated in the report, all of whom had completed their football eligibility before the matter was brought to MSU Police.

Incident 4, reported March 18, 2015

Ex-MSU wide receiver Keith Mumphery was expelled in 2016 from his graduate studies program and banned from campus for violating the university's relationship violence and sexual misconduct policy. He was accused of sexually assaulting a student in an MSU dorm room on March 17, 2015, after he had expired his eligibility with the Spartans. The woman reported the incident to MSU Police that night, and records show conflicting accounts of who was the aggressor and whether elements of their behavior was consensual.

On the day after the alleged assault, Mumphery worked out in front of NFL scouts, coaches and executives at the Spartans' pro day on MSU's campus. The Ingham County Prosecutor’s Office declined to press charges on Aug. 24, 2015. However, a June 7, 2016, letter in Mumphery’s file with MSU Police said he was found to have violated the university’s relationship violence and sexual misconduct policy. The Free Press reported in May 2017 that Mumphery was informed he could no longer reenroll at MSU “in any capacity” and was been banned from campus or using university facilities until Dec. 31, 2018. If he violates that order, he can be arrested.

A federal Title IX discrimination lawsuit filed in November by the woman who accused Mumphery, citing her as Jane Doe, alleges MSU's athletic department helped Mumphery return to campus despite the order banning him. He was never charged in criminal court. The lawsuit also says the university only took proper action after the federal Office of Civil Rights forced them to re-evaluate cases and after Mumphery had expired his playing eligibility at the school.

The cases occurred when Stuart Dunnings III was the Ingham County Prosecutor. He resigned from office in July 2016 after being arrested in March that year on 15 prostitution-related charges, receiving a one-year sentence in November that he is currently serving in Clinton County jail.

CLOSE

Michigan State athletic director Mark Hollis announced his retirement Friday in the wake of the Larry Nassar scandal.
Detroit Free Press

Cases contradict Dantonio

The news of the cases runs countercurrent to what Dantonio said in June, when he discussed four Spartan football players — Josh King, Donnie Corley and Demetric Vance in one incident, and Auston Robertson in a second — who were dismissed after new Ingham County Prosecutor Carol Siemon charged each of them with varying degrees of criminal sexual conduct. ESPN’s report details incidents involving 16 MSU football players under Dantonio's watch.

“We’ve been here 11 years. It’s not happened previously,” Dantonio said in June. “This has been a little bit of a learning experience. As you all know, when you look across the country right now, there are issues. There are issues that need to be explored, and people need to continue to be educated. You do the very best that you can do in that endeavor.”

On Friday, Dantonio was asked about his prior knowledge of the assault cases.

REPORTER: “Mark, did you know about those previous sexual assaults that were reported in that story?”

DANTONIO: “It came to me from the authorities.”

REPORTER: “You knew about them at the time …”

DANTONIO: “They came straight from the authorities. When I found out about a sexual assault, I reported them immediately. That was as of last year’s. So I don’t want to walk out of here or not, but I can’t answer 150 questions. I want to thank you guys for your time. I thought it was important to come and address this and look people in the eye. Thank you for your time.”

The sexual assault cases are among a string of incidents involving MSU athletes.

According to records obtained by the Free Press, ex-MSU basketball players Keith Appling and Adreian Payne were accused of sexually assaulting a woman during the fall of their freshman year in 2010. Dunnings declined to press charges in the matter, citing insufficient evidence.

ESPN also reported two incidents involving former MSU point guard Travis Walton. The accusations were made during his time as a student assistant coach for Izzo during the 2009-10 season, when the Spartans went to the Final Four. Walton reportedly punched a women in the face at a bar in one incident.

Walton, along with two unnamed members of the basketball team, also were alleged to have sexually assaulted a different woman off campus, according to ESPN. The network said no police charges were filed in that case, but reported the woman went to Hollis with the allegations that she was raped.

Hollis did not respond to the ESPN report on Friday, since it came out after his retirement announcement, but he did address whether he had any knowledge of Nassar's abuse.

“Based on the information I had at the time I had it, there’s nothing that I had as far as making a decision,” Hollis said. “When you have an opportunity to go back and re-assess anything, there’s going to be opportunities for improvement, which is one of our core values, to improve. This story is horrible as I just said, but the university has to assess it. Every decision I made was a good one at the time I made it.”

'Hostile environment'

In 2015, the Office for Civil Rights determined MSU’s handling of some Title IX cases had created a “hostile environment” on campus for individuals who complained about relationship violence or sexual misconduct. The federal oversight agency found that there was confusion among MSU’s athletic department staff about who should report sexual assault claims to the university’s investigation office.

In the two 2017 sexual assault cases involving the football program, law firm Jones Day investigated and found Dantonio followed the policy and procedures for employees to report suspected sexual assaults to the university’s Office of Institutional Equity. The OIE handles Title IX investigations into cases involving relationship violence and sexual assault allegations.

“We have always had high standards in this program, and that will never change," Dantonio said Friday. "The values that we teach to everyone in this program will be enforced. We’ve also always tackled problems here head-on and have dealt with issues. When you find out about the problems, it has come from the police or the university authorities. I can assure you as in last year’s incident, I also immediately reported that to the proper authorities."

Izzo has been MSU’s head basketball coach since 1995 and has been on the Spartans coaching staff since 1983.

“At the beginning of my tenure as athletic director, I established a mission statement, one with the student-athletes at its core,” said Hollis, whose last day will be Wednesday. “Our first priority has always been their health and safety. That focus, along with our core values, has guided our department each and every day. Value such as respect, accountability and perhaps most importantly, integrity, has served as a foundation through good times and bad — perhaps at no time more than just the last few days.”

Michigan State coach Tom Izzo on the bench during the first half on Friday, Jan. 26, 2018, at Breslin Center.(Photo: Kirthmon F. Dozier, Detroit Free Press)

Hollis' legacy as an innovator is clouded.

He created unique events such as the “Cold War” outdoor hockey game between MSU and Michigan at Spartan Stadium and the “BasketBowl” game between the Spartans and Kentucky at Ford Field. He helped MSU basketball get involved in the Carrier Classic, playing on a Navy aircraft carrier, and the Armed Forces Classic, playing at an Army base in Germany. He also was instrumental in creating the Champions Classic and Phil Knight Invitational/PK80 basketball tournaments and served on a number of NCAA committees, including as the chairman of the selection committee in 2017.

The university’s athletic facilities were a priority of his athletic department. MSU added on to both Spartan Stadium and Breslin Center in recent years, as well as building McLane Baseball Stadium and other upgrades in the past decade.

However, at least a dozen former Spartan athletes — from the gymnastics, volleyball, rowing, softball and track and field programs — were among the women and girls who gave victim impact statements during Nassar’s sentencing hearing. The NCAA sent Hollis and MSU a letter of inquiry on Tuesday to begin an investigation into the athletic department’s handling of the situation.

“I think what you saw was the emotion, the breadth of the pain that he caused. For the first time learning some of the names, that whole process was very emotional for a lot of people,” Hollis said Friday. “As you look at the medical services that are provided, the MSU health team is contracted with us to provide medical coverage for student-athletes. For a variety of reasons, we don’t have access to information. Good reasons.

“And listening to those (women’s victim impact statements) was the first time for many of us to know how many student-athletes, that least that came forward in that process. What it really showed to me was the expansive path of evil that he had. Way beyond MSU and way beyond East Lansing.”